Gay pride parades in India

This isn't directly related to Shabana Azmi, but it's news that impressed me, and thought would be of interest to some of SLP's readers.

Last week India saw gay pride parades in several cities; the first ever in Bangalore and Delhi. There were also marchers in Kolkata, where pride parades have occurred for some years already. (Mumbai also has an annual gay pride parade, which occurs on August 16, India's Independence Day.) The parades' organizer, Lesley Esteves, said that 1500 people marched in Delhi, about ten times as many as she expected.

You can listen to an NPR piece about the parades here.

And just to tie this weakly back to SLP relevance, here is a piece by Subhash K. Jha about Deepa Mehta's reaction to the parades. “I wish I could be there," Mehta says. "My heart swells with pride when ‘Fire’ is mentioned as a favourite film on alternate sexuality. If ‘Fire’ has inspired the homosexual community, I guess I have much to be proud of.”